Maps and mapmakers - mostly of the Second World War.
That’s what you can expect here, with a spotlight on ‘where’ as the weapon that was hiding in plain sight. But enough about that. This is about me.
The first time I got lost on purpose, I was nine years old. Home was, and still is, in North Norfolk, where sea fret kisses samphire, big skies lift the spirits, and muddy country lanes rarely run straight from one bend to the next.
My well-meaning parents encouraged curiosity from an early age - yes, you can play the bassoon; no, that’s not how you milk a goat - and The Eagle Has Landed soon elbowed its way to the front of my bookshelf. Even to an idiot child like myself, it was clear that thirteen Nazi paratroopers had been buried two villages over. Better still, the book’s endpapers had a map. I couldn’t remember having seen a road sign to Studley Constable, but that didn’t matter. Starry-eyed, hardback in hand, I set out one evening, convinced by indisputable history and undeniable geography.
It took less than half an hour to be apprehended in my pyjamas, and gently disillusioned by my – quite frankly – distraught parents. But the die was cast, and I’ve been getting lost on purpose ever since.
For me, that means seeking out the ‘also-stories’, often lost in the footnotes. Mapping history - exploring the maps, their makers, and the history that was shaped by them during the Second World War - plays a big part in that. By day, I’m an itinerant writer; by night I am an imminent-author. There’s a lot of research happening, and I’ve never enjoyed writing about something, so much. Still, little compares to digging out the walking boots; packing the must-haves; and hiking off into the margins on a hunch, or two.
To my mind, ‘Slow You Down’ is a great philosophy by which to live life. Most of that life involves making the complex simple for people who’d rather not hold a pen: when I’m not on tour, you’ll find me here, at home, working under the guise of Rentaquill Limited. When it comes to les mots juste for my own purpose, I applaud the ethos of the late, and indeed great, LJK Setright: we are all, only immortal for a very short time - or perhaps that was RUSH.
Still, as we do live a short life, it seems a shame not to use all the words we can, to describe it well. Here on Substack, you’ll find me spewing forth with alliterative abandon about maps and mapmakers and mayhem in the Second World War: it’s a sybaritic and perpetual work in progress. Much like me.
@rentaquill
